Want to purchase a website at flippa--help!

Preferably, use Escrow. Make sure the stats are legit.

Make sure that you checkout the feedback of the seller and only buy from someone who has a lot of positive feedback. As stated above, do your due diligence on stats.

Lee

Good sites don't sell for cheap, but there are exceptions. I also like buying sites that have true potential or a method of earnings that the owner hasn't even thought about.

For example, my last purchase was a Pandalized site that used to make x,xxx per month. When I bought it, it was down to xxx and dropping even further.

The owner was desperate and I got a great price. The negative misinformed comments from other flippa buyers seemed to help keep other bidders away. The site had a lot of great content, but it also had 10x more thin and crap pages. I deleted and/or rewrote those, redesigned the site and it's quickly on the way back up.

With the Panda updates, there's been alot of similar sellouts going on. Look for them.

Here's a good thread to read before buying

http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ipped-off.html

First, I recommend you ignore all of the sales pitches you will see on Flippa. You are a buyer and the people you are going to be buying from on Flippa are likely to be seasoned website sellers and internet marketers. They will know how to make their websites look more valuable than it really is. Your job as a buyer is to look at the facts the seller has to offer about the website.

You should not take into consideration how much the website "can" make and how much traffic the website "can" generate in the future. This does not matter because what you do with the website in the future is based on your actions and not vague predictions provided to you by the seller.

Second, the way many people (including sellers) place a value on a website is by taking the amount of income the website is making per month and multiplying it by 10, 11, or 12 months worth of income. If a website is making $50/month, then it should sell for $500-$600.

However, if you look close enough you will find that if there is a website for sale on Flippa that makes $50/month, with proof of income, traffic, and potential for an increase in income in the future, the website will sell for much more. Experienced buyers on Flippa know how to spot out a good website for sale when they see one.

Third, you have to make sure the seller is legitimate. Look into the sellers history, feedback, and flippa trust rating.

Fourth, always use an Escrow service (escrow.com). Escrow charges the seller/buyer a $25 fee. The only time you should be willing to use other payment methods (Paypal) is when the sale price of the website is not that high. My cap is $200. Anything over that amount requires an escrow service.

Fifth, if you find a website with a "buy it now" price tag that is far below the amount of money the website is making every month, be careful.

I was reading somewhere that most sites these day sold on Flippa are sold for 7 months of what they earn.

Always use binding contracts!

Hi there -- Andrew from Flippa here. In addition to the good advice given above, you might want to check out our Pro Guide to Buying Websites (PDF) for some basic how-to instructions.